One
of the last times that I got together with the friends of my high
school church youth group was back in 1993. It was the holiday season
and many of them were returning to Denver to visit their parents.
Chris was going to school in Ft. Collins, Travis was just out of
the Navy Seals and Eric was back from... I don't remember where
actually. The four of us had been great friends at Church and at
the time we were quite popular there.

What we used to do to
cure the boredom of living in Colorado was four wheel drive through
the mountains in Chris's Chevy Blazer, and this is exactly what
we chose to do for our last meeting.

Together in the mountains,
we spent the day walking through train tunnels, hiking, pushing
boulders down mountain sides and off-roading. A hillbilly's dream
vacation. Then as usual, we would stop for pizza on the way back
to sit a reminisce about old times. But before we got to the pizza
place this one last time something happened that made this story
much more memorable.

The seating arrangements
in the truck were like this; Chris was driving (his truck), Eric
in "shot gun" (as I'm sure he had dibs on), and Travis and I in
the back seat (me behind the driver's seat). At one point in all
of the joking and conversation I said the phrase, "You're pullin'
my leg!" in response to something that had been said. It was something
I'd say sarcastically when something was said that was neither shocking
or interesting (I was actually quite annoying at times).

Anyhow, upon saying this,
Travis grabbed by upper thigh and began yanking it saying "No Bob! This is pullin' your leg!"

He yanked on it several
times, thus breaking all and any existing comfort zones I thought
I had. All of this going unnoticed by the front seat. When he stopped,
there was an awkward silence. I faked laughter and looked at Travis
trying to read what the hell he was doing. Less than 15 seconds
later he quietly placed his left hand on my right thigh... and stroked
it.

Now I'm not sure how
clear I've made it on these pages but I am not attracted to men.
At the time I was still a virgin and subsequently probably had a
sissyish way about me that could've raised the suspicions of a Navy
Seal.

My first reaction was
to pull away and look at Travis in shock... and if I remember correctly
that's exactly what I did. He was looking at me directly in the
eye with a slight smile.
"What are you doing?" I asked, and he pulled his hand away and said
nothing.
We didn't talk to each other the whole way home (an hour and a half).

I'm still not sure exactly
what he was doing, but it had to be one of three things:

#1. He was back from
the Navy Seals, heavier into the Christian faith than I'd ever seen
him before. Perhaps his "gay bashing" radar was set on high and
he was trying to "out" me for the sake of the church friends, or
the United States? Or mankind?

#2. He was joking somehow,
with a joke that made no sense, with no punch line, and then it
had to be ignored because it was obviously not a working joke.

#3. Travis was coming
onto me, in some strange military fashion. But clearly there was
no way the others in the truck would have approved of such advances.

Me, Travis, Chris, and not Eric

Several months later
I moved to Chicago to pursue my heterosexual interests and lost
touch with all of them.

I still to this day have
no idea which of these 3 is the correct answer. I saw him one last
time in 1994 at Chris's wedding. Travis was married and had a kid.
Of course no mention was made of the "Right Upper Thigh Incident".
He was deep into the church-going, wholesome Christian family routine
so it would have been awkward to bring it up. But I do remember
that Pulp Fiction had just hit the theaters and I assured him that
it was a movie he had to see, appropriate for the whole family.
I made him promise to take them to see it because I loved the movie
so much. I never heard from any of them ever again.